Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has reiterated that the digital identity and address systems will help Ghana transform and modernise its economy just as other countries have done.
He made the remarks at a campaign tour in the Dome Kwabenya constituency on Thursday, August 29, 2024.9.2
Dr. Bawumia argued that developed economies have gone ahead leaving African countries behind, because their economies went digital, adding that, for African countries to catch up, there is the need for African economies to also go digital.
“I wrote a book in 2010 – ‘Monetary Policy and Financial Sector Reforms in Africa” and I made the point that Africa needs to go digital. That if we don’t go digital, we are going to be left behind because the digital revolution is the key for African economic development,” Dr. Bawumia told a diverse audience.
“When I came into office, I focused on one area which is digitalisation of the economy,” he said.
“I focused on it for a good reason because in modern economy digitalisation is key to solving a lot of problems not only in Ghana but across Africa.”
“There are things you have to do do first if you want to enter the digital world. First, your citizens must be digitally identified. That’s why we said let us issue the Ghanacard and the Ghana Card has been issued,” he said.
“85% of adults in Ghana now have the Ghanacard. We have issued 18 million Ghana cards and that makes Ghana the leading country in sub- Saharan African for digital identity. Today, even children who are born in Ghana, we are giving them digital identities just as it happens abroad.”
“We give them an identity number at birth. We have linked that Ghanacard with the birth and death registry so that integration of those systems is allowing Ghana to do something that no other country in the world has been able to do.”
He added “When we came into office, Ghana was not having an address system that was working throughout the country.. But an address system is TV one of the most important elements for any modern economy,” said Dr. Bawumia.
“An address system is sof important that today, if you go to the United States and you collapse their address system; just erase it, if you could, that economy will collapse because you can’t function. The businesses cannot function without an address system,,” he stressed.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
